RE: AG's
If they can do so much with tomatoes, from size to color to many
different disease resistances, and they do similar stuff with cucumbers
& melons & squash (read a Stokes seed catalog & see all the breeding for
resistant varieties, taste, etc) then somebody knows a lot more than us
about which genes are which as well as breeding those genes to get what
they want in the end result. I only recall a couple names of breeders
that maybe can tell us more or perhaps be able to breed them but their
main fields are tomatoes. One is Tom Wagner of Bakersfield CA who
invented many tomatoes such as Green Zebra, Green Grape, Banana Legs,
Shimmieg Creg, Shimmieg Hollow, etc and last I talked to him, he didn't
sound/wasn't happy about big seed companies who didn't appreciate his
expertise & wouldn't give him a desired employment/contract/arrangement.
He was also growing out plants on rented land for that purpose, so I
don't know if he's out of space or if that means there's more available.
The other is Dr James Baggett of Oregon State University, who is a world
renowned pea breeder and also a tomato breeder; he invented Micro Tom, a
tomato whose plant gets no bigger than about 6 inches tall, by doing
work with the ornamental landscaping dept. He probably does other
veggies as well. What a weird coincidence--he being in the "Land of
Giants" area of the Pacific Northwest, where many AG's are grown huge,
yet him miniaturizing tomatoes. Maybe if he knows how to breed things
smaller, he might know how to do the opposite! Plus many field examples
should be readily available to him for trial. Or maybe the PNW growers
learned something from him already....
Mark K.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pumpkins@hort.net [o*@hort.net] On Behalf
Of Mike and Vickie Brock
Sent: Friday, February 07, 2003 11:57 AM
To: pumpkins@hort.net
Subject: AG's
Mark can't tell you how glad I am to know someone out there that is
reading the same book.
So after reading it, my conclusion was, that the system of selection in
place was as good as any------choosing from the biggest and heaviest.
Selfing would be totally useless unless you weed out the bad recessives.
Which might happen naturally with the system in place that the best
would make it to the weigh-offs and do well and the others basically
culled.
IMHO---I think pure-breeding(selfing) you could gain consistency but
also the size might cap off ..
It appears that the out breeding seems to leave the door open that
heterogeneity is necessary for the sizes were seeing now.
I like what Mike Nepereny wrote as to try and fix the weight- wall
thickness then breed out with big size genes like the 705 stelts.
What I like most about AG's is it makes you want to learn and learn all
you can about growing things....MB
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Pumpkin-growing archives: http://www.hort.net/lists/pumpkins/
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the message
text UNSUBSCRIBE PUMPKINS
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Pumpkin-growing archives: http://www.hort.net/lists/pumpkins/
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE PUMPKINS
